It was during a recording session in
the autumn of my freshman year in college when I peeked inside the grand
piano and gazed at the soundboard. At that moment, I found myself
wanting to reach inside and start playing those strings! After pondering
this thought, I began plucking piano strings with my fingers while
holding down the sustain pedal between takes. This led to incorporating
a plucked piano string part in a song I recorded.
Although the final recording sounded pretty good, it became obvious that
playing the piano in this manner simply was not practical at all.

In my interest to get a sound similar to
the plucked piano without the hassle, I started thinking about getting a
double-course instrument like a 12-string guitar or a mandolin. I was
studying classical guitar while at the university and preferred using a
classical fingerstyle method. Unfortunately, I came to the realization
that the mandolin was meant to be played primarily with a pick and, at
the time, I simply couldn’t afford to buy a 12-string. Eventually I
bought a cheap mandolin and got years of enjoyment out of it. Of course,
that wasn’t the same as opening up a grand and playing it like a
harp…

Phase II – The Search

(2000-2002)

A few years later, I was walking through a
music store in
Prague
,
Czech Republic
when I stumbled across a Portuguese mandolin that had four triple
courses!The last time I
played a triple course was when I opened up that piano all those years
ago. This renewed my interested in playing the
mandolin but the same realization came to me: You really need a pick to
get enough volume out of a mandolin. The mandolin still sounded good
though and it inspired me to search for a double- or triple-course
instrument that could more easily be fingerpicked. Thus began the long
journey.

At first, I was confident that I could find an instrument out there
that would be just what the doctor ordered. However, the instrument
proved to be very elusive. I started by looking at the mandolin family
instruments (mandola, mandocello, octave mandolin), the Irish bouzouki
and cittern. I figured that with the longer scale lengths, these
instruments would be easier to fingerpick.

So, over the next few months, I kept an eye out for these instruments
and played them when I got the chance. One day, I made a happy discovery
when I visited a small music store in
Indiana
and finally got the opportunity to play a number of the larger mandolin
family instruments. Unfortunately, I was unhappy with sound I got out of
these instruments when fingerpicking. Every time, the store owner would
offer me a pick and I would decline.Fingerpicking the big double-course unison low end strings just sounded muddy and dead.

After considering the playability of the various instruments I tried
out, I resolved to choose the modern Irish cittern. The Irishcittern is similar to a short scale Irish Bouzouki but with five
double courses instead of four. The two
strings within each course are traditionally tuned to the same
pitch and in unison. I was toying with the idea of stringing the lower
courses in octaves but I never got a chance to try that out.

After settling on an Irish cittern, I found a luthier named Doug
Dieter that lived an hour away from where I lived in
Indianapolis
that happened to specialize in Irish citterns and Irish bouzoukis (www.kennaquhair.com).
After visiting with him, I was very impressed with the quality and
playability of his instruments.

At that point, I was formulating a plan on having a nice cittern
made.

Before I visited Gregg’s website, my idea of
a harp guitar was an old Gibson that’s only seen in pictures, almost
impossible to find, and very costly. After discovering all these new
harp guitars and the luthiers that make them, my vision of the
instrument I wanted changed considerably.

Modern
Bell
Cittern

Harp
Cittern

So, I went to Doug and we talked about two designs. One was my take
on a “bell” shaped cittern (a modern tribute to the old “bell
citterns” of the 1800s) with the same stringing configuration as an
Irish cittern and the other was; you guessed it, a harp cittern!

His reaction to the bell cittern was fairly positive but he balked at
the harp cittern. It was just not something he wanted to tackle at that
time.

From that point on, I was definitely into the idea of extra strings!
Since this was the case, I held off on getting a traditional Irish
cittern and started exploring various harp guitar designs. I felt that a
harp cittern or octave mandolin was getting closer to what I was looking
for. Again, thanks to Gregg Miner and his harp guitar website, I was
able to contact various luthiers who specialize in harp guitars. One
luthier that I communicated with that expressed a keen interest in
atypical harp guitar-like creations was
Stephen Sedgwick.

It was during this initial correspondence
with Steve that I learned that the second International Harp Guitar
Gathering was going to be held in Williamsburg,
Virginia
in November 2004. He was going to be there and recommended that I
attend. Also, since a long time friend of mine happened to live in
Richmond, it was easy for me to make the decision to go there, visit my friend
and on the weekend, drive over to Williamsburg, meet Steve and check out all those harp guitars!

Needless to say, I had a great time at the Harp Guitar Gathering. I
was able to talk with experienced harp guitar players and luthiers as
well as play a myriad of harp guitars. It was a harp guitar bonanza!
After this event, my ideas started to gain more focus.

The 2nd Annual International Harp Guitar Gathering

Steve Sedgwick presents his new harp guitar
at the Gathering

John Doan and his Sullivan-Elliot
20-string harp guitar at the 1st annual Harp Guitar
Gathering.

In particular, the conversations I had with the renowned harp
guitarist John Doan led me to make an important decision. I decided that
I would like to incorporate super-treble strings. John commented that
the range of the harp guitar with treble strings could be comparable to
that of a piano. The idea of playing a left handed piano like part with
my left hand playing sub-basses while playing a right handed piano like
part with my right hand playing super-trebles was very intriguing to me.
John’s instrument was the closest thing to a portable plucked piano
with frets that I had seen so far, except it had no double courses…

Another important decision I made was to go with luthier Stephen
Sedgwick. I was very impressed with the playability of his harp guitars
and during our conversations, he seemed very open to exploring new harp
guitar designs and ideas. Many established players were all highly
recommending him and Fred Carlson, one of the most prominent luthiers in
the world, assured me that he was an excellent choice. Master harp
guitarist Stephen Bennett even performed on one of Steve’s new harp
guitars during the evening concert. It also helped considerably that he
was relatively young compared to the other luthiers which meant his
waiting list did not extend into years. Not yet anyway…

Stephen Bennett and Joe Morgan
with two Sedgwick harp guitars.

On the way home from the Harp Guitar Gathering, I jotted down a list
of some basic things that I had tentatively decided on:

Stephen
Sedgwick would build this instrument.

It
would be a harp guitar-like instrument with double courses.

A
super-treble bank would be incorporated into the instrument.

To
keep the cost down, I would not require any expensive woods or
extras. (Well, they just couldn’t be too expensive…)

It was a strange feeling starting a project
like this without the slightest idea of what the final result would be!

By far the most important and fortuitous decision that I made was to
go with luthier Stephen Sedgwick. In Steve, I found a person who was
very accommodating when discussing and implementing different design
concepts, even if it meant that he had to invest more of his time in
order to carry them out. I got the feeling that he would do whatever it
took to get the job done right.

Soon after the harp guitar gathering, Steve and I communicated
frequently via e-mail, discussing different design concepts and various
construction issues, and we also swapped drawings. The instrument was
starting to take on an identity. During this correspondence, I really
appreciated his rather unique openness to try so many new things. I felt
very lucky to have such a highly skilled luthier like Steve actually
take my amateur designs into consideration and then transform them into
something practical that could actually be built! When some people make
one thing that they like, they stick with it. I noticed that when Steve
makes something he likes, he’ll go off and make something completely
different, and with excellent results. He was just the guy I was looking
for!

Harp Octave Mandolin
#1

Harp Octave Mandolin
#2

The first sketch I made after
returning home had a rather bizarre violin-like body design and the
second one was based loosely on the Larson
mandolins. Both have an unusual bridge setup.

Steve was intrigued with the
multiple-bridge options. However, I thought it looked a little too
“thrown together.” I did like the body design of the second attempt
better than the violin-like body of the first attempt; so I drew up some
more basic body shapes based on the second drawing.

#1

#2

#3

Harp Mandolin/Octave Mandolin
Body Ideas

After drawing up some initial body designs, I strung them up!

These new designs with the bottom cutaway resembling a crescent moon
didn’t feel right to me either. Also, with the straight bridge, it
seemed like the super-treble courses were just too short and would sound
too different in comparison with the main fretted strings.

I was in a quagmire. So, it was back to the drawing
board… Again, the first design that came to mind was the Larson
harp mandolin that Robert Hartman brought to the second Harp
Guitar Gathering. I really liked the overall design of the instrument.
Especially the bottom cutaway which looked more natural compared to my
earlier drawings.

Larson
Harp Mandolin

Harp Irish Bouzouki

Harp Octave Mandolin #3

For more inspiration, I conducted a search through The
Knutsen Archives and found something that looked fairly similar and
with a scale length that would be close to the instrument that I wanted
to have made. It was a left handed ¾ size harp guitar with a treble
bank. http://www.harpguitars.net/knutsen/hgs25.htm

The main concept that I liked about the Knutsen harp guitar when
contrasting it with John Doan’s Sullivan/Elliot model was the idea of
having an angled bridge for the super-treble strings. With the
super-treble bridge at an angle, the upper bout would not have to be
sloped. I thought that if the severely sloped upper bout could be
avoided, then the instrument would sit better on the knee. However, I
thought the Knutsen super-treble bank was backwards. I wanted the
pitches to go from low to high as they move away from the strings on the
neck. For this to happen, the bridge would have to angle in the opposite
direction.

Left handed Knutsen Harp
Guitar

At that point, I started searching for a bridge configuration where
the super-treble bridge angled upwards. As I continued to search through
the Knutsen Archives, I noticed that the super-treble bridge
on the earlier Knutsen harp guitars did just that. This made more
sense to me.

Knutsen harp guitar with upward
slanting super-treble bridge

As I was about to start another drawing, I came to a rather
disturbing realization. I started asking myself questions like, “Am I
sure that I want a harp guitar version of an Irish cittern or octave
mandolin?” and “Is there another double course guitar out there that
would be better than a cittern?”I
wanted an instrument that would be easy to fingerpick and I wasn’t
sure if the cittern would be that instrument. At that time, I began to
feel a little disillusioned with the whole project. Was I basing this
whole instrument on a compromise?

Then I made a discovery that changed the nature of the entire
instrument and would prove, in the end, to be the catalyst that would
push this design phase to completion! The missing link was the
“Brazilian Viola Caipira.”

I discovered the viola caipira on the
internet while I was browsing though some new instrument listings at an
internet music store. While I was viewing the instruments they had for
sale, I stumbled across what looked like a small parlor guitar with 10
strings. Now here was an instrument that had the same number of courses
as the Irish cittern. However, the strings gauges did not look the same.
I immediately started doing some research on what the viola caipira was
and where it came from.

Orquestra Paulistana de Viola Caipira – The Paulistana Country Guitar
Orchestra in San Paulo,Brazil.

The Brazilian viola caipira (country
guitar in Portuguese) is smaller than a standard size guitar and has
five double courses. The lower three courses are tuned in octaves, and
light gauge, low tension strings are standard. This makes it very easy
to fingerpick. In fact, the main playing technique used by Brazilian
viola caipira players is a mix of fingerpicking and a flamenco style. As
you can see in the picture above, everyone is playing finger-style on
these instruments!

After seeing the picture, the first
question that came to mind was, “Why is this instrument almost
completely unknown around the rest of the world?” It looks popular
enough in
Brazil
. In fact, the viola caipira is
Brazil
’s national instrument! Yet, around most of the world, when you hear
the word “viola”, you inevitably think of the viola that you put
under your chin.

After digging up some more information, I
learned that the term “viola” actually originated in
Portugal
. “Viola” is a variation of “violao” which is the Portuguese
word for guitar and the viola caipira actually descended from a myriad
of older Portuguese “violas” such as the viola toeira
de
coimbra, the viola braguesa and
the viola Beiroa among others.

Evidently, at some point when settlers from
Portugal
started colonizing
South America
, they brought their Portuguese violas with them. These viola
instruments were then embraced by rural musicians and became synonymous
with native Brazilian folk music and heritage. It was during that time
that these 10 string violas evolved into one common guitar that became
known as the viola caipira, the country
guitar played by
Brazil
’s rural folk musicians.

I think that the reason why almost no one
has heard of the viola caipira outside of
Brazil
is because almost no information on this instrument is available in
English and it doesn’t even have a common English name. Also, The
English translation “country guitar” is much too general and the
Brazilian people that I have talked to always referred to the instrument
as a “viola caipira” even when speaking in English. No one ever
called it a “Brazilian country guitar.”

Giannini Viola Caipira

Hootz Viola Caipira

So, after discovering
this instrument, I searched for one I could purchase. After trying a
mass-produced Giannini viola caipira that I wasn’t very impressed
with, I contacted a Brazilian luthier named Marcos Hootz online and
started a correspondence with him. Eventually, I bought a viola caipira
from him made with a koa top and Brazilian lacewood (or alligator wood)
back and sides. These are not the common woods for the viola caipira.
Brazilian rosewood is usually used for the back and sides.

When the viola caipira finally arrived, I
opened the case, tuned it up and started playing. In fact, I forgot when
I stopped playing it! The feel of the instrument was much more delicate
than any Irish bouzouki or cittern. Also, the light gauge, octave tuned
lower double-courses opened up new melodic possibilities that I hadn’t
imagined. The instrument was not very loud but sounded bigger than it
was. Seconds after playing it, I knew that this was the right
instrument! The uncertainty was gone.

So, keeping the Larson aesthetic in mind and the Knutsen bridge
design, I drew up some more designs of what Steve christened the
Brazilian “arpa viola caipira”
or “harp country guitar.”

1.

2.

3.

Arpa Viola Caipira Evolution

In these drawings, various aspects of the design were being
finalized. A couple significant aspects were:

Bass
headstock design and positioning in relation to the guitar
headstock.

With the bass headstock, I wanted it
to resemble the design Steve uses on his standard harp guitars. It was
important to me that the arpa viola caipira (which I will refer to by
the acronym AVC) would be
identifiable as a Sedgwick harp guitar which meant that I wanted some of
his signature motifs to be incorporated into the final design. To me,
what made Steve’s harp guitars stand out was the shape of his bass
headstocks.

I still hadn't decided if the
headstock should be significantly higher than the guitar headstock or in
line with it.

The
severity of the lower bout cutaway.

I definitely wanted the lower bout cutaway to be a distinguishing
feature of the design, but I didn’t want it to turn into an arm rest!
So, in the third design above, I made it less pronounced.

After I finished the drawings, I sent them to Steve,
and, using these drawings as a starting point, he drew up his first
version of the arpa viola caipira.

Arpa Viola Caipira – First
version by Stephen Sedgwick

After Steve drew up a few more drawings of the AVC, he told me that
he would mail them to me. While I was waiting for his drawings to arrive
in the mail, I had to confront an issue that I may have been
unconsciously avoiding: The possibility of every
course having two strings.

Since the beginning of the design phase, I wasn’t confident in
making a final decision on whether to have double or single course
treble strings.However,
when the time came to make the decision, it was a no-brainer. After
actually playing the viola caipira for a couple of months, I decided
that I would want the sound to remain consistent throughout the treble
bank. By having double courses, I could not have a large number of them
since the amount of tension per course would be doubled. In the end, I
decided that having a more consistent sound
with five double treble courses was better than having more
single courses.

Unfortunately for my sanity, this logic led
to the question: For the sake of consistency, why not have five
double-course basses as well? While this proposition definitely makes
sense, thirty strings is a lot of tension! Here I am, I’ve already
paid a significant down payment on this instrument and my logical
conclusion is to make an instrument that could possibly implode!

For reassurance, I called up Steve. To his credit, when I asked him
about having double course basses, he gave it the green light with
almost no hesitation. At that time, he had completed a new 21-string
harp guitar with great success. He was very
happy with the playability and sound quality of the harp guitar
and he believed it held up very well to the tension. This was apparently
due to the fact the he was using a new
construction technique based on “piano construction
technology” that significantly strengthened the instrument
without sacrificing the tone.He
told me that he would use this same construction technique with my harp
guitar. Even though I didn’t entirely comprehend his new method, this
made me feel more comfortable with the idea of having a 30-string harp
guitar. After talking to Steve, I tentatively decided to go with double
bass courses. However, I still felt that I needed a third opinion.

So, with Steve’s blessing, I called the leading worldwide expert on
the harp guitar, none other than the redoubtable Gregg Miner! I
described to him the string characteristics of the instrument so far:

Like
the standard viola caipira, the fretboard would have five double
courses, with the lower three courses tuned in octaves.

It
would have a bank of five double treble courses, tuned in unison.

Then I asked him what he thought of having five double course basses
tuned in octaves to match the lower courses on the fretboard and his
immediate response was, “Yes. Go for it!” Although he could
understand my lingering concern regarding the tension, he agreed with me
that musically, it would make much more sense to have the open bass
courses match the lower courses on the fretboard. He also mentioned that
his German Theorbo also had descending open double-course basses tuned
in octaves which further supported the idea.

Finally then, after having Gregg confirm my
inclination to go with double-course basses, the decision was made to go
with thirty strings! The final configuration of the instrument
was complete!!

Soon after this decision was reached, I got
Steve’s drawings in the mail. I rolled them out and wrote some notes
and suggestions on them. Since the AVC would have double-course basses,
I set up one of the bass headstocks on Steve’s drawings with ten
tuners. The result incorporated five banjo tuners and five guitar
tuners:

Tuner configuration idea for
bass headstock

Steinberger gearless tuners

After sending the picture to Steve, he suggested that I go with
Steinberger gearless tuners for the bass headstock instead of banjo and
guitar tuners. Regular guitar tuners limit bass headstock design since
they must be installed close to the edge so that one can have access to
the tuners. Steinberger tuners, like banjo tuners, allow more freedom in
shaping the headstock since they can be placed anywhere. Another reason
that Steinberger tuners are a good choice is because they are much more
accurate than banjo tuners. When I asked him why luthiers didn’t
utilize these tuners for the sub-bass courses on regular harp guitars
more often, he informed me that the tuners were not really designed to
take those heavy gauge bass strings. They
would, however, work for the AVC since the open “bass” strings are
not really bass strings at all. Their range would cover only the
lower range of a standard guitar, hence it would not use any gauge lower
than the low E string on a standard guitar.

After jotting down more notes on Steve’s drawings, I took pictures
of these notes and created a document with these pictures and e-mailed
it to Steve (to view this document, click here).

Here’s a list of three revisions that were made at that time:

We
decided not to go with an open headstock.

I
drew in a third course fretboard extension at the sound hole. With a
standard guitar, a fretboard extension on a middle course wouldn’t
make much sense. However, there is a practical reason to have one on
a viola caipira. The highest pitched string on the instrument
happens to be the high G# string on the third course. Since this is
the case, a technique I found myself gravitating to when playing the
viola caipira was to play a melody on the third course while
accompanying on the higher courses. I knew that I would utilize this
technique on the AVC so any extra notes I could get out of that
third course would be a plus. Again, it was important to me for the
AVC to incorporate Steve’s aesthetic so I drew the end of the fret
board extension in the shape of his standard guitar headstock. I
thought it would be cool to have the head stock and the fret board
extension match!

After
comparing Steve’s AVC body profile with the traditional viola
carpira profile, I requested that he slightly widen the lower bout
of the body. Since the traditional viola caipira body design usually
has a noticeably wider lower bout, I wanted this to be reflected in
the AVC design.

After Steve got the document, he OK’ed most of the changes but made
two observations that required revisions.

First, he stated that the bass headstock
would not actually connect in two places like my drawing due to the fact
the guitar headstock is at an angle. So, I slightly revised the
headstock attachment as seen below:

Original headstock proposition

Revised headstock connection

Also, in the revised headstock drawing, I drew an inlay design at the
top of the headstock and a truss rod cover. The inlay could possibly be
considered a Sedgwick logo with its “S” like shape. Steve thought
the inlay was interesting but made no commitment to the design and he
didn’t like the truss rod cover shape so we dropped it.

Steve also
remarked that the third course fretboard extension at the sound hole
might extend too far. He said that there would be a possibility of the
wood warping over time and that it would prohibit access to the truss
rod. So, with Steve’s comments in mind, I shorted the third course
fret board extension to include one extra fret instead of two.

Original 3rd course
extension

Revised 3rd course extension

I sent Steve my revised drawings and he drew up what I think is a
pretty accurate representation of what the final instrument will look
like:

Final pre-construction drawing of the Arpa Viola
Caipira

The pre-production phase of this project was finally coming to a
close nine months after I first met Steve at the second
Harp Guitar Gathering. The next step would be construction. Before that
stage would begin though, I would attend the 3rdAnnual Harp Guitar Gathering in Salem, Oregon where I’d get
reacquainted with the friends I made the year before and let
Steve take a good look at the Hootz viola caipira
I’d been playing so he could get
an idea of what kind of sound the instrument makes.

I knew that the most difficult part about going to the third harp
guitar gathering would be not telling anybody about this project!
Understandably, Steve wanted to avoid announcing an instrument like the
AVC before he started construction on it.However, since Gregg was already sworn to secrecy, I told him
that the viola caipira was in the trunk of my car and without
hesitation; he played it and loved it – noting that he had nothing
with that exact sound among any of the 200 instruments in his
collection. Now I’m curious to find out what his reaction will be when
he hears the harp version!

In the next article, I present in
detail the construction of the arpa viola caipira from start to finish.
Among the many things that will be dealt with are:

Brad Hoyt (www.bradhoyt.com)
is a composer, pianist and harp guitarist who has performed
and recorded extensively in America and Europe. Brad
graduated from Ball State University with a Bachelors degree
in Telecommunications and an associate's degree in
Jazz/Commercial Music. Part of his studies included
classical guitar lessons and private piano lessons with
renowned jazz pianist Frank Puzzulo. Also while attending
Ball State, he preformed with the school's big bands, small
jazz groups and with his own rhythm and blues band. After
graduation, he moved to New York City and performed
regularly as a solo pianist and ensemble musician. While
living there, he arranged an original piece for chorus and
orchestra and his original Christmas arrangements were aired
nationally on NBC. Between 1999 and 2002, Brad recorded and
performed regularly in Europe. Today, Brad works at
Steinberg, the recording software division of Yamaha
Corporation, and lives in Carmel, Indiana with his wife
Andrea Hoyt and their children Loreena and Luke. Brad is
currently working on a new duet album of original material
featuring himself on piano with various harp guitarists.

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